The 23rd Symposium of The Protein Society will be held July 25-29, 2009 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts. The meeting theme is Proteins in Motion. The meeting organizers are Celia Schiffer (Univ of Massachusetts Med Sch) and David Eliezer (Weill Med Coll of Cornell Univ). Two Plenary Sessions will feature the topics of "Dynamics and Thermodynamics" and "Allostery." Scientific sessions will focus on Protein Design, Trafficking, Folding, Cytoskeleton Dynamics, Protein Therapeutics and Targets, Dynamics of Protein-Nucleic Acid Interactions, Disorder, Drug Resistance, Membrane Remodeling, Dynamic Complexes and Networks, Signaling, and Translocation and Transport. Lecturers, including both high profile senior investigators (e.g. John Kuriyan (Berkeley), Tom Blundell (Cambridge), Rachel Green (Hopkins), Susan Taylor (UCSD), Michael Eck (Harvard) etc.) and junior investigators, were chosen on the basis of their outstanding research programs. In addition, the program is highly diverse with women and other underrepresented groups comprising nearly one third and one fourth of the invited speakers, respectively. Our goal is to appeal to an expanded audience of researchers in biomedical fields where proteins play an important role, ranging from basic biochemistry and biophysics to cell biology to human therapeutics. Many of our symposia cover topics with direct relevance to broad areas of human health and disease: neurodegenerative disorders (Folding &Disorder), cancer (Signaling, Cytoskeleton Dynamics, Protein Nucleic Acid Interactions, Drug Resistance, and Therapeutics &Targets), infectious diseases (Translocation &Transport, Signaling, Membrane Remodeling) and heart disease (Trafficking, Dynamic Complexes and Networks, Signaling). We plan for 1,300 attendees, including undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, as well as junior and senior scientists from the U.S. and other countries. Approximately 300 graduate students and 200 postdoctoral fellows are expected to attend the meeting. Oral sessions include invited speakers and promoted poster talks. 15 plenary talks, 61 invited speakers and 30 promoted poster talks are scheduled. The poster sessions total approximately 400 posters. About 700 abstract submissions are anticipated. Promoted poster talks are chosen to represent late-breaking developments and to provide an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows to speak at the meeting.